(1) There is a known art for distinguishing a semantic classification (for example, a shooting scene) of individual images constituting an image group based upon a characteristic amount of each of the images and for determining the semantic classification of the said image group based upon the characteristic amount of the image group using distinguish results with respect to each of the images (refer to patent reference literature 1).
(2) There is a known art for extracting identification information from an image itself or attribute information of the image, and for identifying an event of the said image based upon the extracted identification information (refer to patent reference literature 2).
(3) There is a known art for grouping a plurality of images based upon individual shooting date and time information of the said plurality of images. For instance, processing is performed so as to put the images into successive groups in time series based upon shooting frequency information aggregated for each predetermined shooting period (refer to patent reference literature 3).
(4) There is a known art for selecting at image representing characteristics of a group from among grouped images (refer to patent reference literature 4). Evaluation values representing the likelihood of scenery, still life, portrait, or the like are individually calculated from the images constituting the group. In the event that the number of scenery images is the largest among the images in the group, an image with the largest evaluation value about scenery is selected as the representative image among the scenery images.
(5) There is a known album creating apparatus as follows. The album creating apparatus selects an image of a subject appearing most frequently in grouped images as a representative image (main image) (refer to patent reference literature 5).
[Patent reference literature 1]U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,467[Patent reference literature 2]Japanese Laid Open Patent PublicationNo. 2007-129434[Patent reference literature 3]Japan Patent No. 3914747[Patent reference literature 4]Japanese Laid Open Patent PublicationNo. 2007-94990[Patent reference literature 5]Japanese Laid Open Patent PublicationNo. 2006-259932